


Air

by RegentOfTheAuxArcs



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst and Feels, Anxiety Disorder, Asthma, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, It's been a rough day for everyone, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unspecified Setting, Why is this ship a canoe, disability feels, we'll tag underage to be safe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 04:03:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13286586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RegentOfTheAuxArcs/pseuds/RegentOfTheAuxArcs
Summary: Ezra unpacks Jedi stuff, complicated feels, and plenty of unresolved stuff with some help. Kanan has an awful lot in common with asthma.Unspecified time and place, not quite explicit, but tagged to be safe.





	Air

**Author's Note:**

> Here's that weirdly-specific coping fic you needed for 2018, enjoy. There's probably more where this came from.
> 
> Brief soundtrack--some have asked!   
> How Come You Don't Want Me--Tegan and Sara  
> Kids--The Ooks of Hazzard  
> Waiting To Be Told--Blaqk Audio  
> The Morning--The Weeknd  
> Chocolate--The 1975

Ezra Bridger was very, very high.  
He sat up in bed, pulled on the acrid rolled cigarette between his fingers, ashed it, and then held in the smoke until it burned. This was the only way these days he could think clearly, able to let go of the constant yanking between darkness and light that seemed to never leave him alone. The pressure was anxiety-inducing, and when you’re on a mission try to not get shot or chopped apart or any number of the things that could and would go wrong, distraction meant danger, and not just to him. Delicate trails of wispy smoke trailed from his nostrils as he exhaled. It was an exercise in deep breathing, meditation without brain-noise, and many of the things Kanan grew frustrated trying to work with him on.   
There’s something else he really didn’t want to think about, but had to try to acknowledge, feel, and release. Easier said than done.

Kanan had Hera. It was what it was. It was so before he joined them, and didn’t look to be changing anytime soon, whether or not they bothered with the formality of signing off on documents. Documents are traceable, and that was the last thing the Ghost Crew needed, another way to get caught. It didn’t make it any easier, but he supposed that was what it was too—more than likely just a different kind of attraction he was mistaking for romantic and/or sexual in nature. He didn’t quite have the subtleties figured out yet, but he recognized there were different types. Zeb was his best friend—loyal, funny, sharply intelligent, willing to go to extraordinary lengths to keep all of them safe. Sabine he loved like an older sister, and of course she was aesthetically beautiful—there’s a word he’d picked up from her. When he’d confused it for “athlete”, she quickly corrected him.  
“It’s an appreciation for like, visual beauty, nimrod. Or the quality of a specific artist or style. I mean athletes can have aesthetics but I don’t think that’s what you mean,” she said, wiping her hands on her work pants. They were caked with pastel dirt, something new she’d picked up and was learning to work with. She’d been branching out from street stuff into classical techniques and supplies and it was so cool to see her style grow too. He idly wondered if she’d ever draw him if he asked.  
Hera was like a new mom. It hurt to think about her in more ways than one, so he let that go for now. He would never want to hurt his mom—Mira or Hera. It didn’t matter. It was a matter for another time.  
That left Kanan—a terrible soup of mentor, master, father, man.

Yeah, Kanan was something else. He allowed his mind to wander. That was the only way to deal with this stuff, he’d said so himself. Feel it, acknowledge it exists, set it aside. But what else was he doing right now besides decompressing? It might be a good time to try to work through this. He took another pull, this time blowing through a metal pipe with a fresh-smelling static sheet fixed to the other side. It disguised the smell, filtered it out. Nobody had caught on so far, or if they had, they’d at least had the tact to not say anything about it. The relaxed, vacant space in his mind filled with images—the last time they trained together. It had been a few days since he’d gotten injured and had the break. They were sparring, Kanan was using mostly elements of Soresu, but it just didn’t fit Ezra for jack-kung. It was all about deflecting and building a good defense, but reactionary, and there was just something about it that he just couldn’t get a grasp on. Kanan hardly thought about it, gliding across the room and twisting his hands in a near-Florentine style, fluid and stars, those forearms were so strong and sure and that two seconds of distraction earned him a nasty burn on one hand and a turned ankle as he went straight down having miscalculated exactly how far away he was. It was effective against Ezra as well as frustrating to learn for one chief reason: it was all about outlasting and damn non-aggressive. All the nervous energy he carried with him constantly, intensified by the conflicting feels for/about his master, did not translate to “non-aggression”. The moment slowed down in his mind’s eye and he studied it for a minute. Kanan’s lean form, masculine grace, measured breathing even in the heat of a sparring match.  
(Yes, that’s very hot and we’ll deal with it later.)   
Watch his hands, what did he do? Swish swish crack crack push TRIP. It was balance, and it wore him down, made his reflexes falter. What was the best way to get at someone trying to waste your energy?

(Don’t let them waste it. Duh.)  
It seemed obvious now, with him able to compartmentalize. He experimented with empty hands, trying to fill in the gaps with vivid imagery, the memorized feel of his unorthodox blade in his hands. Two-handed wielding was a disadvantage in some regards, but making up for his total inability to block was not one of them. He was afraid of truly getting INTO it, he realized. If he fought Kanan like an Inquisitor, he might actually hurt him. And that’s why he kept getting into situations like this—elevation and heated compresses, tripping over his own stupid feet and eating duracrete. It was just that, stupid. Stupid, simple, and he was still at an impasse.

(I’m afraid to hurt him, but I can’t learn if I don’t treat every match like it’s life-and-death. When I really need it, I’m gonna have no idea how to act. You do as you train, Kanan said so himself. I am not doing what I’d normally do. Then again, I have to tap in and feel that dark kung and use it to really do what I do best, and that’s going to make him uncomfortable too. There’s no way around any of this.)

His head swam when he rolled over on his other side. Heat collected in his cheeks, and he rode out a brief surge of nausea.   
(Inhale, hold it…don’t think about how he breathes when he moves like that…exhale.)   
And again. And again. Everything righted itself again.  
He focused on the problem at hand again.

(I have to work past this. I have to talk to him about this. If I keep having this problem, it’s going to bleed into the next time we get in trouble. If I’d have gone down in front of the Inquisitor, we could both be dead, or worse. I have to get out this tension. How can he not feel this every time we’re in the same room?)

A terrible, intrusive thought crept in.  
(Inhale, hold it, recognize it for what it is. Then exhale.)   
Ezra realized that, like this coping strategy he’d picked up, it was entirely possible that Kanan knew and chose to not speak about it. He was the diametric opposite of stupid, and Ezra suddenly saw just how it probably looked. The lingering looks, the perfectionism, down to the flush that differed widely from the colour and clamminess of exertion. The way he froze every time Kanan touched him in passing.  
(I’m as subtle as the business end of a clawhammer and as usual, the last to know.)

He finished off the burnt end and stubbed it out, lidding the ashtray and tucking it in his nightstand.  
(This is anxiety, this is the worry that feels like holding my head under water and trying to breathe it.  
This is the hitch in breathing that always comes when I do this and when he knocks the wind out of me and when I’ve been running too hard. Where’s my inhaler? Pocket? No--nightstand. It’s there if I need it.  
This is the not-exactly-rational fear of basically everything having to do with feelings. This is me choking on that again. I see you, I know what you’re about, kriff you and the dewback you rode in on, I don’t want to feel like this, but here it is, it is what it is, I’m afraid, I need to move on.  
Inhale, hold it. Think about that slow blink when we’re talking after meditation. Exhale.  
Inhale, hold it. Think about the Caster’s Bow in his upper lip that you look at when you’re talking. Exhale.  
Inhale, hold it. Think about his hands helping you get up, callused and wide, checking that sprain, they’d never hurt me. Exhale.  
Inhale, hold it. Think about his smell, you can sense it in the Force when you’re feeling out for him, argan oil, something woodsy, maybe birch. Rich and heady. Nice like smoke. Inhale that every chance you get, hold it as long as you can. Exhale.  
Inhale, hold it. It is what it is. Exhale.  
Inhale, hold it. It is what it is. Exhale.)

That one phrase always seemed to encompass how this all worked. Acknowledge, accept, move on. One of the hardest parts of Jedi stuff was having to learn to do that. Ezra still had a fire for trying to change what he couldn’t accept, whether he could affect real change or not. (Wasting energy—it’s all about wasting energy. Don’t let them waste it, duh.)  
He opened the drawer, fished around and shook up the metal casing until it clicked, held it at thumb’s distance from his lips, sucked in the medicated air. The constriction in his chest didn’t abate, so he repeated it, thankful for the weird kind of security that this thing offered. Click and puff, that’s the difference between choking and air.   
(That cold feeling when you could finally breathe again after an attack—that’s Kanan. Pain and relief at the same damn time. Trust and trust issues. Peace and aggression. Love? Okay, I don’t know about that yet, but there’s something. Light and dark. Stars can’t shine without darkness, the shadows need light to be seen. I need to choke to appreciate breathing.)

If he was getting around okay, they were supposed to resume training tomorrow. The dried green leaves helped him think, but they also aided in dreamless sleep, something he was thankful for tonight more than usual.

The next day, he still remembered most of the revelations of the night before. It was time to do something different, do as he trained, and actually deal with the complicated brain stew, but it wasn’t so imposing this time.

He didn’t hold back, either. In his mind, he let go of that handsome face and replaced it with the cold grey mask of the Inquisitor sister, the one he feared more. She made his skin crawl, reminded him of things he saw on the street and tried to forget. Each blow was not to Kanan—it was for him. For next time.

They stopped when Ezra managed to bowl Kanan over. The unmistakable crack of an angry tailbone was the end of it. Kanan smiled through the pain and accepted help back up. Their bond thrummed with warmth and affection reciprocated, and Ezra treasured the small contact. When they discussed it after, whether he realized it or not, Ezra broke the chains that kept him from performing his best. He told Kanan everything. Well, almost everything. He didn’t quite feel like getting the business for what he liked to think of as “meditative aids”.  
The weight lifted. Kanan didn’t dismiss it out of hand, but he didn’t quite address it, either. Nor did he get into the whole thing about attachments and the code and all that lofty, high-minded bantha-kung that went with it, thank the stars. When they parted, he let his hand linger on Ezra’s shoulder longer than strictly necessary.

He didn’t need any help meditating before bed that night. His own steady, slow breathing was more than enough.


End file.
